The Plight of an Angel
by Josh12349
Summary: Carter was one of the best C-sec agents on the Citadel. After many years in C-sec he took an early retirement and moved to Omega to restart his life in any way he can. However, after a gang takes his girlfriend from him and leaves him for dead, he joins a team of men and women, aliens and humans, all led by the one known as Archangel.


_Hello ladies and gents! I don't believe it's too terrible for me to make this request, but if you guys could give some constructive criticism/reviews it would be much appreciated. I want to know what other think of my works._

_And, as always, enjoy!_

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**Chapter 1:**

Omega had always been a sanctuary for anyone who wanted to live the life of a criminal, and a hellhole for anyone who wanted to live a normal life away from the Citadel Council. Carter had come to Omega after retiring from C-sec, sick and tired of the protocols and red tape that surrounded every single case. After ten years of dealing with C-sec he decided that it was time for him to move on and start a life that could be considered normal. He figured that living on Omega would keep him away from his past life, while giving him some opportunity to live a new life of his own.

Within three months of coming to Omega he had an apartment, a job working as a bartender at Afterlife, and a stable relationship with a girl he had met at the bar. While this new life wasn't glamorous, he was content with what he had.

Carter wiped the bar with a wet cloth, almost to the beat of the deep bass that echoed through the Afterlife bar. The bar had been fairly empty, which meant that boredom was going to seep in soon. He reached under the bar for a glass and a random bottle of liquor and poured the dark green liquid into the glass. He took the shot of alien booze, which burned its way down his throat and eventually reached his stomach. He tossed a credit chit into the register and then continued to wipe the bar.

After a couple of hours of repeating the same process over and over again, someone he actually wanted to see came up to the bar. The simple, deep blue, dress she wore clung to her body and emphasized her wonderful curves, and stopped just short enough to emphasize her wonderful legs which seemed to go on forever. She leaned against the bar and said, "Afternoon."

Carter smiled and asked, "What's the occasion?"

"Don't you know what day it is?" She asked with a sarcastic tone of surprise. When Carter shook his head she answered for him, "It's the sixteenth, otherwise known as your birthday."

Carter smacked his head and nodded, "Of course! How could I forget?"

She grabbed his shirt and pulled him forward. When he was close enough so he could smell her perfume she whispered in his ear, "I have to go to work, but I'll see you tonight." She released Carter's shirt and walked away without another word.

Carter watched her every step until she was out of sight, and then exhaled. His moment of peace was interrupted almost immediately when the gunshot rang out like a crack of thunder from above. He ducked below the bar and grabbed his shotgun he kept, just like every other bartender in history. The gunshots began to grow in number until Carter could hear rounds ricocheting off the walls around him and breaking bottles of booze.

This was another aspect of life that Carter had to get used to. Working in Afterlife, the bar where the Pirate Queen Aria liked to stay, he learned quickly that shootouts on Omega were to be expected.

However, while Carter came to expect them, that didn't mean that he was completely acclimated to the thought of getting his head blown off in the middle of a gang war.

He rose above the bar for a moment just to see the three batarians gunning down anyone who tried to put up a fight. Carter brought the shotgun to bear on the closest batarian and pulled the trigger. The alien was close enough to the weapon so that his shields broke and he was dead within a blink of one of his four eyes.

The other two batarians were surprised at the sneak attack, and they reacted within seconds to the new threat. They unloaded their assault rifles into the bar, and Carter hit the floor right as the first round hit the metal exterior. Some rounds went through the exterior and whizzed over Carter's unprotected skull. He crawled away from the fire and then leaped over the bar and ran away from the angry batarians.

Carter made it halfway up the staircase to the upper level of afterlife before Aria's men came around the corner and pointed their weapons back down the staircase. One shouted, "Drop the gun!"

Carter did as told right as the two batarians reached the bottom of the staircase. At that moment Carter fully understood the situation he was in. Caught in a crossfire between two bloodthirsty batarians and a bunch of hired mercs who couldn't care less if he died right then and there.

To his surprise, when the gunfire came it came from within the lower bar. The attack took the two batarians off guard, and they were killed almost immediately. Carter looked down at the bloody corpses of the attackers just as the other squad of Aria's men came in to examine the bodies. Carter picked up his shotgun and said, "Good timing."

* * *

Needless to say, Carter had the rest of the day off. The bar had been destroyed, blood had been spilled across the floor, and Aria was now focused on damage control. She had to "deal with the bastards who had the balls to attack her at the seat of her power."

Carter had been somewhat shaken by the fight, only because it had taken him by surprise. Now he just had to find himself a taxi and get back to his apartment to meet up with Sarah.

He stood on the street for a long while, waiting to see a taxi drop someone off. As he waited a turian came up beside him and said, "You were the guy working Afterlife's lower bar today right?"

Carter turned to look at the turian before replying. The alien was a couple of inches taller than he was, wearing blue combat armor and a holographic eyepiece over his right eye. Corso was hesitant to respond, "Why?"

"I was visiting the upper bar today and couldn't help but watch when the bullets started to fly." He turned so that he faced Carter when he continued, "That was a gutsy move blasting that first batarian with your shotgun. He had shields, combat armor, and was heavily armed so you had to know that if your shot didn't go as planned you would've been dead within a second. Not to mention you had the brains to get out of there before they shot their way through your bar."

Carter was getting more and more uneasy as the turian analyzed what had gone on earlier that afternoon, and eventually interrupted to ask, "What is it you want from me?"

The turian held up a finger and said, "Let me ask you something first; where did you get your training?"

"What?"

"Your shotgun was a _Katana_. Not the best gun on the line, and you were using it against a heavily armored batarian. You picked the perfect spot that would result in a killshot, and hit your mark with pinpoint accuracy. So what is it? Alliance marine? C-sec?"

"I retired from being a special agent in C-sec a few months ago. I was told that I may have even been spectre material if I signed on with the Alliance." Carter stepped back and looked to a taxi that had just landed, and started walking towards it, "Now what do you want?"

The turian nodded his head, with what seemed to be approval. Then he replied, "I'm looking for men and women who want to make some kind of difference on Omega; people who're tired of criminals getting off easy with innocents dying at their expense. Based off of what I saw today, I think you might be someone that can help."

Carter reached the cab and turned around to face the turian, "I didn't come to Omega to be a cop again. I came here to get away from all of that!"

As Carter bent down to sit the turian grabbed his arm, "If you wanted to escape that kind of life why did you come to Omega? This place is that kind of life taken to a whole new extreme." He stared at Carter for a long minute before letting go, "You didn't come to Omega to escape that life." The door began to close and the taxi began to lift, "You came to Omega because you wanted more."

* * *

The taxi ride to Carter's apartment was a long one, so Carter was given tons of time to stew over what the stranger turian had said. The same phrase kept repeating itself in his mind, "_You didn't come to Omega to escape that life. You came to Omega because you wanted more._" Every time he re-heard the phrase he shook his head in denial and looked out the window for distraction. Before this tactic worked because he would only stare at the architecture and bore himself to sleep, but now all he could focus on was trying to see the different crimes, muggings, and burglaries that were going on the ground.

When he finally reached his apartment door he found it cracked open. He rolled his eyes and thought to himself, _"Just what I needed today."_ He stepped through the doorway, expecting to find his apartment in complete disarray and missing some expensive items. Instead he found the exact opposite. The apartment had been cleaned, and everything was in its place.

Carter was frozen in place for a moment, listening for any sign of movement within the apartment. Seconds after entering the apartment he heard a rustling from the bedroom. When he turned down the hallway he caught a glimpse of Sara's blue dress on the floor. Carter smiled and called down the hall, "I'm home!"

To his surprise he heard a deep voice respond from behind, "I know." Before he could react, Carter was thrown off his feet, and he collided with the wall just above his mattress. The breath escaped Carter's lungs, and the drywall where he hit cracked upon impact. He fell down onto the bed and rolled onto his back. The first thing he registered was the simple blue dress, stained red, which was thrown across the floor. The second was the angry batarian standing at the end of the hall, pistol pointing at Carter's chest. The batarian said, "You killed my brother at Afterlife today. Now I get to kill you."

Carter looked back over to the blue dress and asked, "What did you do with her?"

Before pulling the trigger the batarian smiled, "The whore who was here when my boys and I arrived? A couple of my men wanted some…one on one time with her." He pulled the trigger, and the round hit Carter square in the stomach.

At that moment Carter wasn't sure which hurt more, the bullet or what was happening to Sarah. Either way while the batarian turned away, laughing, Carter pushed past the pain and grabbed his gun that he kept under his bedside table. The _Carnifex_ pistol was heavy, and Carter pointed the weapon at the back of the batarian's head. When he pulled the trigger, his weakness overcame him and the shot impacted the batarian at the shoulder. The batarian lurched forward and hit the far wall.

Carter's stomach lurched when the weapon fired, and he doubled over in pain just as the batarian brought his own weapon up. Carter rolled off the bed and pushed himself into the corner of the room, out of the line of fire. He pulled himself up off the ground, gripping the wound in his gut, and he pointed the _Carnifex_ at the hallway. The batarian came around the corner with his weapon raised, and they met each other's eyes at the same instant.

The pair of men stared at each other for what felt like years; both of them were wounded, but neither wavered.

Carter could feel the blood ooze from his wound, and he began to taste blood in his mouth. He knew that soon he was going to succumb to the wound, and he supposed his batarian opponent knew the same. Right as Carter decided he was going to pull the trigger; there was a loud crack outside the apartment, and a loud commotion. The batarian turned the other way for just a moment, and Carter took that opportunity to shoot his assailant right between the eyes.

Carter fell just as his deceased opponent's body did, and he crumbled to the floor alongside Sarah's blue dress. Darkness crept into the corners of his eyes, and his eyelids drooped. He coughed up some blood just as he said to himself, "Happy birthday."


End file.
